Nina vs The World

2011- a year of deaths, more Apple products, Android playing catch up, the birth of Google Plus and a wave of protests. Incredibly so, these last twelve months have broken many records in regard to weather and have included everything from gripping court cases to celebrity deaths. January started off the year with the Loughner shooting in Tucson, Arizona. Jared Lee Loughner raised a pistol to Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords and subsequently fired on other people present. Five people died either at the scene or later on. Giffords, however, survived and went through months of physical therapy. Talented Amy Winehouse died at age 27 from a drug overdose. Protests in Egypt, Libya and the US created ripples. The truth is it was quite the unexpected year. Midyear, Google jumped on the social networking scene with formidable rival to Facebook, Google Plus. A real life sharing fun and business altogether network. Steve Jobs died, briefly after the release of iPhone 4S- his la...

Many of you are still broke and recuperating from Black Friday's ridiculous sales and are fearing the upcoming season of gifting. If you were smart and selfless, much of what you bought on Black Friday will be gifted to your friends, family and lesser-than-friendly co-workers. But we all know you bought that shiny new notebook and that sweet new 52" TV for none other than yourself. So where are you going to buy all these other people gifts? I'm an online shopper for many reasons- I hate long lines, being shoved around a store by crazy people, and hearing multiple wailing kids while their distracted mom decides between purple or lavender bath towels. I'm a cheapskate when it comes to wasting gas, and I refuse to pay 34.99 for a shirt that cost .75 cents to make. This is why I'm going to let you in on a little secret.. There's a fairy tale place online where you pay a fraction of what department stores charge you. Where no matter how much you purchase, your...

S ince we have cognitive abilities and are learning right from wrong, we are taught to work hard, to work effectively, and to always be diligent in our tasks. Why? Because the hardworkers always come out on top, receive the best rewards, and have an increased and well founded self worth. Truly it paints a wonderful picture. But an accurate one? Not so much. There's at least one industry I'm fully aware of, I'd say perhaps one of the most important pillars of a nation like the one we live in, that aims to pulverize every ideal we had about our work. Granted, it may be not be life or death that you helped some elderly lady find the right color cardigan, but it's a job worth doing right, and feeling honorable for it. So why do retail giants squeeze the life out of their employees? Here's why they're still NOT getting it. 1) They believe praise is poisonous and noneffective. You know, sometimes associates are not asking for a whopping $.50 added to every hour w...

Sure, you can jump in the water without knowing how to swim. But you can't jump into the same water knowing there are hungry sharks competing to get some skin off your bones without knowing how to be a pro swimmer. Interpretation? Google should not have launched individual pages if they knew business pages were a long ways off. Did Facebook do it? Yes, but Facebook is allowed the "pioneer permission", meaning, they were first to become a huge social networking place, so inevitably, had to make some trial and error shots along the way. Google, knowing this information, and playing the very in tune spectator, felt they wanted a piece of the networking pie. Orkut and Buzz weren't good enough. So they created a brain child merging aspects of Twitter and Facebook into Google Plus. And the crowds cheered, that finally there was a place online that would be the hub of all things social. That you could check your email, read your favorite blogs, update your calendar, p...

Who sez we lack in ejucation?

When did everybody become the best philosopher? Where did all these cheesy one-liner life maxims and blocks of texts that direct you on how to live come from? I can't even sit down and eat an unhealthy plate of Chinese food without reading a quote that says something like, "Stop looking back, the future is forward" or some golden treasure like that. And honestly, not only is it annoying and intrusive, but also contradictory. How many times have you heard, "Live life to the fullest!" and then, "Always save a little spontaneity for tomorrow." Or, "Follow your heart!" and then, "Your mind full of creativity and problem solving should govern the path you walk." "Plant goals and reach them!" and then, "Make life flexible enough to change your destination at will!" Quite honestly, it's an overload of self-help I wasn't really asking for in the beginning. Granted, we all may have one or two truths we hold de...

There's a recurring theme in my classwork this semester that covers ground of whom we look up to, or down upon, for that matter, and whom takes up that middle chunk of not being wholly good or entirely bad, either. Heroes - the selfless amazing individuals that are loving, self sacrificing, humble and also non existent. Villains - the bad but irresistibly cool wardrobed person with bad habits and bad company. Vigilante - the dude who thinks it's okay to kill 1,000 people, as long as you save that one bratty child with the dopey looking eyes. Ahem.. so here's my $0.02. The vision people have of heroes have become so warped and the title used so liberally that everyone from Lady Gaga to your Mailman is in some form, a hero. And hey, we all want to aspire to be good people with good rapport, yes- I'm with you there. But where do we draw the line, people?! If we keep this up, in five years the President and Congress will be considered heroes! I'm going to focus ...